Twins 4, Indians 2: Offense takes a day off

After averaging nearly nine runs per game during their six-game winning streak, the Indians barely scored at all on Sunday, losing to the Minnesota Twins, 4-2, snapping the Tribe's six-game winning streak.

The Indians outscored their opponents, 53-14, during the streak and scored six or more runs in all six of the games. Kluber gave up three runs Sunday, which would have gotten him a win during the streak.

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But timing is everything.

"He gave us a chance to win, but we were pretty silent today offensively," said Indians manager Terry Francona, whose team scored one run on three hits in one inning and one run on three hits in the other eight.

It's difficult to win with two runs, and Kluber didn't. He pitched 5 2/3 innings, allowing three runs on five hits.

"I thought I threw pretty well," he said. "It's not like I was all over the place."

"He kept the score manageable to where if we got a hit at the right time we had a chance to win," said Francona, "and the way it ended, we did bring the tying run to the plate."

That came with two outs in the ninth inning, when Carlos Santana belted a home run off Twins closer Glen Perkins to cut the Minnesota lead to 4-2. Ryan Raburn -- the MVP of the homestand so far -- singled, bringing the tying run to the plate.

That was Mike Aviles, pinch hitting for Lonnie Chisenhall against Perkins, a left-hander.

Aviles worked the count to 3-2 -- and then to 3-3, as Perkins struck him out to end the game, and the Tribe's winning streak.

The real culprit however was Twins starter Mike Pelfrey, who is almost one year to the day removed from Tommy John surgery. Pelfrey pitched six dominating innings, holding the Indians to one run, which came in the fourth inning on a sacrifice fly by Mark Reynolds.

"A sinking fastball at 94 mph is tough to hit," said Reynolds. "He kept the ball down all day. We weren't able to string any hits together."

Throw out the fourth inning and in the other five he pitched, Pelfrey retired 15 of the 17 batters he faced. The only two Indians who reached base in those innings did so on a walk and an infield hit.

"He had really good velocity on the plate, and once he established that he could throw his fastball for strikes inside, that opened the plate for him," said Francona.

The Twins took a 2-0 lead in the second inning when Kluber gave up a one-out walk, followed by a home run over the left-field wall by Trevor Plouffe.

"He threw one too many breaking balls to Plouffe, and paid for it," said Francona.

"It wasn't a hanging breaking ball, I just didn't get it where I wanted," said Kluber. "It was my third breaking ball in a row to him, and it wasn't my best."

In the sixth inning, Kluber gave up a leadoff single and two consecutive walks to load the bases with no outs, but the only run the Twins scored came on a single by Justin Morneau to turn a 2-1 Twins lead into a 3-1 lead.

"Even though they got some runners on that inning, I wasn't throwing the ball that bad," said Kluber.

Minnesota added another insurance run in the seventh when, with two outs and nobody on base, Matt Albers walked Jamey Carroll and gave up an RBI double by Joe Mauer.

When Santana homered to make it 4-2, and Raburn singled with two outs in the ninth, it suddenly got interesting.